tisiphone | dissertation dilemmas

You're viewing

tisiphone's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

While the idea of a month in NZ is lovely, I'm afraid it's realistically going to be too expensive (unless I stayed in a hostel, and I can't do that, I'll go insane). New idea: the bodily technique and meaning of corset-wearing. I can do that in the UK, and I can have a huge amount of fun at any Voller's seller for a tenth the cost of a month in Auckland. So, it's early days yet, but how many of you would be willing to talk to me sometime in March about a) goth shopping or b) the wearing of a corset or c) the observation of the corset-wearing of others? If you don't want to volunteer in public please email or PM me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If you're looking for any sort of support for your PhD, and serious about possibly getting a job in academia on teaching and research side, you might want to think about making sure your MA diss leads into what you want to do for your PhD. In History, at least, admissions and hiring committees like to see people whose work is focused enough that it will be feasible for the applicant to produce on the scale that the REF wants, and that will attract students. I'm not saying breadth is discouraged -- far from it -- but a research agenda that is coherent and feasible is becoming ever more important. Getting published in the right places is really difficult unless you've started to carve out a niche for yourself.

Yes, I'm definitely thinking about that. I don't want my MA dissertation to be too similar to my PhD proposal, since that'll lead to the view that I haven't progressed, but at the same time I don't want to look too random either - I want it to be sequential and built on previous work. I also want to make sure it's in a field that's visible, but not too crowded, and that I'm actually doing original work at this level. Which is why there's probably going to be a lot more navel-gazing from here on out, since in anthro that's a difficult mix. (One reason why I'm focusing on material studies, which is relatively new and trendy without being too weird.)